There was something off about his obviously intentionally egregious picks, and what you say makes a lot of sense.

In 2016, Trump was an outsider with a few allies. 2016-2020 he bullied anti-Trump republicans like Kinzinger and Cheney, making examples out of them and getting a lot of candidates, governors and House members to kiss the ring. By 2020 on Jan. 6th when it came time to object to certification and stage the coup, the House was deeply infected by MAGA loyalists, but the Senate was mostly immune (with a few exceptions, like perennially spineless Cruz and Hawley).

Now in 2024, the Senate is showing signs of pushback but Trump knows he has momentum from a likely complete House takeover and his election “mandate.” He’s making a statement: “submit.”

The backlash makes more sense when you consider it’s a purely emotional reaction. It’s a backlash against “feeling bad.” Nevermind that feeling bad when seeing someone who was wronged is appropriate.

Rather than even try to reckon with those feelings, the part of the nation that is not being victimized decided it’s too hard to empathize with victims. They didn’t like feeling bad. And happily for them, there were plenty of conmen and women, influencers, and other people more than happy to tell them they shouldn’t feel bad, in exchange for money and power.

I’m not giving up on America. But for now I’ve given up on Americans.

The reason is that we agree on all of the concerns, working class families should be getting attention and support and they’re not. The rich are eating us alive. Mainstream politics isn’t helping.

But it’s clearly substantially more the fault of the right, who are lying through their teeth to the working class while accelerating wealth disparities, anti-worker policies, and removing their upward-mobility as well as democratic, institutional and social protections they actually rely on.

And if Americans are so uninterested in facing reality that they’d rather be lied to than put in a little effort to actually check the candidates’ policies, if they’ll vote against their interests and give in to blatant propaganda and manipulation, when everyone is telling them what well happen… Well, what can we say but, “Ok, face-eating leopards it is. Enjoy. Let us know when you’re tired of that.”

Putin isn’t waiting, he apparently started amassing troops within a day of the election.

I look at it as “the beginning of the end.” It’s crossing the event horizon in a black hole.

The GOP has successfully created an alternate fictional reality for the majority of voters, but once free press has been suppressed, there can’t be competing realities. There’s almost certainly no going back because the state propaganda at that point is the only game in town, and no oppositional narrative can take hold.

Yeah, I mean, obviously this is not a 4D-chess move. Trump acts instinctively but he’s had a lifetime of narcissistic manipulation informing that instinct. Gaetz would already have been looking for ways to maximize his visibility while skirting the investigation, Stephen Miller probably could have contributed the “trigger the libs and deep state at first, and make it seems like they get a win once they’ve got it out of their system” part.

Everyone around Trump is self-interested evil in their own way and I could see how it works together pretty well.

The best explanation I’ve seen is that this was a calculated pick to distract and lower the bar for Trump’s eventual real nominee (Paxton?), allowing the Senate and public to swallow someone who will still enable the DOJ as Trump’s own personal vengeance law firm. It is also again Trump nonsense taking up all the oxygen, preventing debate over his other extremely problematic picks like Tulsi Gabbard.

It gave Gaetz cover to resign and prevent his ethics probe from being public, and if this theory is correct, he’ll withdraw from consideration before any of that information is made public. Mission(s) accomplished.

At the end of these appointment press releases, I fully expect to see one last press release that just says, “The Aristocrats!”

Well, we’re going to see plenty of new crimes in the next 4 years, and Trump is going to be motivated to stay out of jail if it’s even still remotely possible. I think he’s going to do everything he can to stay president until he’s actually dead or incapacitated.

Yeah, the generational divisions aren’t clean any longer. Young men voted for Trump, thanks to social media “alpha” male influencers and recommendation algorithms.

So convenient to have detention centers - camps, really - outside places that have major concentrations of political opponents. Better to be prepared, right?

Nothing at all to worry about that Trump’s nearly highest priority is to install loyal leadership at the military. Nope, nothing concerning about that. Everything is fine.

I really hope someone is keeping a list of all of the saboteur hires, not just the cabinet level posts but stuff like this, in case we have the chance to remove them later.

I know in Mexico and other countries higher on the corruption index, where there are still elections that aren’t pre-decided but a lot of additional corruption and arbitrary politicking, this purge-and-replace cycle happens every election. It’s so unfortunate but may just be the new way of doing things, even if somehow we retain democratic elections.

Just to say it out loud: in the days after the election and call, Putin is amassing 50,000 troops for a big push. This is propaganda to make his eventual “negotiate peace by letting Russia keep whatever they have at the date of cease-fire” plan more palatable.

Good job - we picked the candidate favored by the KKK, Nazis, the Taliban and Putin.

Where even am I anymore.

I would have posted this as a post if not violative of Rule 1, but Jon Stewart’s The Weekly Show posted a great episode yesterday with a very thoughtful political theorist guest. It focuses on why the disinformation campaigns are responsible for this election.

In short: We have already reached a point where real policy and positions is no match for propaganda. Political power was decisively proven this election to derive from creating and exploiting a false reality, with multiple groups in Trump’s coalition directly and decisively voting against their interests because they simply believed Trump more than reality. In Russia this is called “political technology” and Trump followed that playbook exactly.

Is it even possible to learn that lesson in time? I don’t think so - I think we missed our last chance. Because Trump’s campaign so effectively recognized this, we can also expect them to recognize that media cannot be allowed to be independent and control of the media is how they maintain that false reality. Like Hitler, like Putin, like Xi, expect that Trump’s team - given free rein by his sycophantic House, Senate and Supreme court - will ruthlessly crack down on free press. I’d be shocked if it doesn’t happen in the first few months.

We’re about to enter a very dark time, and by the midterms, it’s likely that even with a “free and fair” election, it will be so tainted by state-sponsored misinformation there is no hope of the public voting out the right.

This is infuriating.

Nothing has changed re: Trump’s status as a regular citizen, and the DOJ’s memo only applies to sitting presidents. The DOJ and Jack Smith were prosecuting criminal conduct. In winding down these cases now, they are voluntarily refusing to prosecute someone they believe is a criminal when their role was to do so on behalf of the people. Likewise, the judge is voluntarily abandoning his duty to expediently seek justice on behalf of the people.

The proper course here would be to continue to treat him as a regular criminal, not delay anything, and on January 20th, decide then if you want to quit.

This preemptive compliance is doing 90% of Trump’s work in creating an authoritarian state where he is above the law. Don’t just roll over, you hacks, do your jobs.

It’s Russia. It was always going to be Russia.

24 hours ago I hoped Trump would be out of my life forever in less than a day. Right now I’m watching the House races in ever-slimmer hopes that Trump won’t have control of the presidency, the Supreme Court, and Congress in January.

The US Enabling Act seems certain to follow if that happens.

I’m physically ill by this result, but this isn’t an option. You can’t save democracy by discarding democracy.

Trump could do it because he’s a fascist - he wants to discard democracy. A healthy system would have checked him not just then, but barred him from running again. We haven’t had a healthy system in a long time.